Research Projects

I. Advocacy in the United States and the European Union

My project Brussels vs. the Beltway: Advocacy in the United States and the European Union is the first large-scale empirical study of lobbying in the US and the EU, two of the most powerful political systems in the world. Policies emanating from these two spheres have global impacts; they set global standards, they influence global markets, and determine global politics. Everyday, tens of thousands of lobbyists in Washington and Brussels are working to protect and promote their interests in the policy-making process.

The book investigates the strategic decisions those lobbyists make throughout the advocacy process. Each chapter details how institutional structures, issue-specific characteristics and interest-group factors blend to determine decisions about: how to approach a political fight, what arguments to use and how to frame an issue, what direct or inside lobbying tactics to employ, what public relations or outside lobbying strategies to use, and finally, in what networking and coalition activity to engage.

It is not only what lobbyists do in these two political systems that is interesting of course, but also to what effect. The last substantive chapter looks at how the same set of factors - institutions, issues and interests - affect lobbying success. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 150 advocates in Washington D.C. and Brussels, Belgium, as well as a massive store of case information on the random sample of 47 policy issues, the book uses rigorous empirical analysis to investigate the determinants of lobbying decisions and policy outcomes. Using publicly available information, each case was followed for more than a year after initial interviews to assess the outcome from the perspective of each advocate, allowing a systematic assessment of who got what they wanted, who did not, and who fell somewhere in between. The analysis blends qualitative evidence with quantitative statistical analysis to demonstrate that advocacy can be better understood when we study the lobbying of interest groups in their institutional and issue contexts.


II. Building Civil Society from the Ground Up: Collective Action among the Displaced

My second major project is investigation the mobilization of civil society among displaced populations.  When violent conflict results in massive forced migration, communities experience a complete breakdown in social order.  During displacement, either across borders or internally within a country, the displaced are faced with collective problems.  In certain situations the displaced have mobilized and organized to solve the problems they encounter, in other situations malaise sets in and collective action problems are not overcome. International, national, and local NGOs play an important role in understanding when the displaced mobilize and when they do not. This project lays out a theoretical structure explaining participation in collective action among the forcibly displaced and tests that theory through a multi-country, pan-regional study of displaced populations in 9 countries (Field work has been completed in: Croatia, Thailand, Uganda, and Colombia; field work in Tanzania, Kenya, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Azerbaijan will occur in 2009-2010). 

The research considers the barriers to mobilization that the collective action literature has traditionally recognized as well as the hurdles that are unique to situations of forced displacement. The factors that influence civil society participation (either positively or negatively) can be grouped into four aspects of the displacement situation: the human security context; the legal context; the cultural context and the duration context. In addition, activity by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) is a major determinant of collective action among the displaced and forms the fifth category of factors to be studied.  

III. Argumentation Tipping Points: Individual and Collective Framing in the European Union

How an issue is understood fundamentally influences the outcome of a policy debate.  If one idea of an issue takes hold it can determine what interests mobilize, how many mobilize, whether the governing party supports or opposes, and if there is an all-out battle or a quiet compromise.  Getting everyone to debate an issue “on your terms” can dramatically improve your chances of getting what you want.  So a goal of any skillful advocate is to get your idea to catch on, to reach the tipping point that your way of thinking isn’t just one way of thinking, it is the way of thinking.  

So how is it that one dimension or frame, or a few, come to dominate on any given issue, even though most issues have many dimensions and could be discussed in countless ways?  What is the process by which individual level framing attempts aggregate and a single dimension and frame dominate?  Is the macro-frame simply determined by the sum of its individual parts, or are their other factors at play?  How long do reframing processes take; can an issue be re-defined during the debate on a single policy proposal or is it something that takes decades.

IV. The Power of Institutions: State and Interest-Group Activity in the European Union

This project investigates the ways in which government activity, or demand-side forces, influence interest mobilization and formal inclusion in the policy-making process in the European Union. Drawing on an original dataset of nearly 700 civil society groups active in the European Union, the analysis provides empirical evidence of three routes by which the EU institutions influence interest group activity: (1) direct interest group subsidy; (2) manipulation of the establishment and composition of formal arenas of political debate; and (3) broader, system-wide expansion of competencies and selective development of chosen policy areas.

The interest groups dataset can be downloaded here.

The consultative committee dataset can be downloaded here.

The codebooks can be downloaded here.

V. Trans-national NGO Project

I am also affiliated with the Transnational-NGO project in the Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs, led by Peg Herman, Hans Peter Schmitz, Bruce Dayton and Derrick Cogburn. Interviewing 180 T-NGOs about their organization, activities and accountability this project is aimed at better understanding how NGOs working across borders operate, why and how they might do so more effectively. 

The project website can be found here.